‘Planet of the Apes’ Gets First-Person VR Shooter Game

The studio that helped bring Alien Covenant and Isle of Dogs to life in VR has revealed their next project—a VR game. FoxNext, the video game and VR division of 20th Century Fox, will be bringing a first-person shooter experience based on Planet of the Apes to PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive on April 3rd.

Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR isn’t just another movie tie-in that you would expect in advance of a feature release, but is over a year’s work of production in partnership with Imaginati Studios. Developing a VR game is a first for FoxNext and includes over a couple hours of gameplay.

Letting you play as an ape within the Planet of the Apes trilogy, you are captured and held prisoner in a heavily guarded scientific facility as mankind desperately searches for a cure for the Simian Flu outbreak. Your mission is to climb, jump and shoot through the chaos of a violent new world to escape with your fellow apes and return home.

The VR game is focused on first-person character embodiment, letting you look down at your ape forearms and pick up weapons or use them for locomotion. Since you’re an ape, of course you also walk on your arms. There is no teleportation in this VR experience, instead you use your VR controllers to move your arms, traveling from pre-determined points in the world. Weapons that you can pick up and blast your way to freedom include an assault rifle, shotgun, and even a heavy machine gun towards to end of the game.

“VR has always held the promise of bringing together the cinematic storytelling of film and the deeply immersive interactivity of games. Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR takes this potential to the next level,” said Brendan Handler, SVP & GM, FoxNext VR Studio. “We set out to give the fan a lead role in this dark Planet of the Apes world – to feel the ape’s strength, power and movement as he fights his way to safety.”

FoxNext’s core business will include continuing to produce interactive products for the VR market. Surprisingly, this Planet of the Apes VR game is just one of three VR games the studio plans to launch this year said Handler in an interview with VRScout. And it doesn’t look like the studio’s games are just after thoughts to supplement a movie. Instead the studio is dedicating resources and time to makes games right. Combining plot-driven narrative with combat while embodied in an ape character may be just what fans of the franchise have been looking for.

Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR will be available on April 3rd on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive for $14.99.